Ever wonder how games are assigned? Here’s a few insights:
- Spring Season
- Both leagues must enter games by a cutoff date.
- The High School (IHSLA) cutoff is February 1st. Games begin March 1.
- The Youth (IYLA) cutoff is March 1st. Games begin April 1.
- Off Season
- Games are generally entered by Assignors
- Assignors can see the schedule for the whole season, but the main priority is to assign the soonest games first. They can also look ahead in the schedule to find critical matchups and place one or more highly experienced officials on the game.
- When assigning a particular game, Assignors are presented with a list of available officials, sorted by rank and distance from the game site.
- “Available” above means unassigned or unblocked. An official’s Arbiter settings for time, distance, site, or other blocks will affect his appearance in the list.
- While it may seem simple — just pick any name from the list — the Assignor must often take into account all of the games for a particular day (or week) and strike a balance of experience, distance, level, and sometimes personalities.
- Another complicating factor is shortages of officials
- Assignors must navigate the “assigning priorities”, which were established to sort out which league or teams would have their games covered first on particular days of the week.
- On some days, they have to “double up” officials’ assignments and the distance between game sites (along with start times) becomes a factor.
- After assignments are set, the Assignor “publishes” them, and Arbiter sends emails to the officials prompting them to accept or decline the game(s).
- If an assignment is “Declined” (or the official does not respond within 5 days), the official is automatically removed from the game and the system blocks the entire day for that official. The Assignor receives an email notification of the decline and must re-assign the game(s).
- An important item to note is that Teams/Administrators/Payors do not see an official’s name on a game until the official has accepted the assignment. This is also the case when a change is made to an already-assigned game and the official receives another email prompt to accept.
- Declined games.
- Understandably, everyone has unexpected things that come up, and Assignors appreciate when those are communicated in a timely fashion. Frustration results when officials don’t keep their availability updated, or don’t bother to accept/decline when sent assignment emails. Re-assigning games is extra work, and those complicating factors don’t magically get reset, so it’s even more of a headache the second time around.
- Last minute schedule changes.
- This is a team issue, but it can cause cascading changes to ensure there is adequate coverage on all games, multiplying the work Assignors must perform.
- Late changes can affect more than just Assignors. Officials may be asked to change locations or add additional games. Teams may not have a full crew for high level games. And administrators may have to re-process payments for a changed crew.